Ritter Sport Vanille-Mousse

Product name: Ritter Sport Vanille-Mousse
Purchase details: £1.75 for a 100g bar (monstersweets.co.uk)
Calories: 146 per 25g serving (284 per bar)
Country of origin: Germany

It’s about time I got around to eating this Ritter Sport Vanille-Mousse – it looked delicious in its slightly golden wrapper showing a deep vanilla mousse filling and an ice cream image to match.

There was no English on the packaging but, according to Google, ‘Unser sorte des jahres’ translates as ‘our species of the year’...I’m sure you get the gist! The wonders of the internet also taught me that the product was ‘whipped vanilla mousse in milk chocolate’ and that it had ‘large pieces for more mousse-pleasure’.

The bar came in nine large squares so was very much like the Kakao-Mousse in appearance – it simply had a deep and enticing pale cream filling with specks of vanilla instead of a dark brown one. I did think it was silly that a serving was supposed to be a quarter of the bar when it couldn’t be split into four pieces but, as I was eating it all anyway, I didn’t let that bother me! I also didn’t let the tarnished chocolate affect my scoring because that was entirely my fault for not keeping the bar cool enough in the recent heatwave...I refuse to store chocolate in the fridge on principle!

The bar had a creamy chocolate aroma but, unfortunately, this wasn’t infused with an element of vanilla despite the filling making up 40% of the product.

Thankfully, it tasted delicious! The centre was just like ice cream, if a little less sweet, and it even had a similarly liquidy texture. However, it was a bit grainier than ice cream, and it obviously wasn’t cold either!

Whilst my experience of the chocolate shell wasn’t the norm due to the heat damage, it did mean I could easily peel it off and sample it on its own. It had a lovely sweet flavour with a deep cocoa element mixed in – it actually reminded me of chocolate cake mixture which is testament to how nice it was! It was the chocolate that was the main feature of the bar but its flavour did go very well with the vanilla mousse too.

The bar had a thick melt and I loved letting the liquid pop out of the middle. The squares were a bit too big to suck on for long but, to be honest, I found I didn’t need to anyway.

This Ritter Sport treat felt really indulgent. If I could change one thing, it would be to make the mousse a little creamier as, at times, the overall taste was maybe a bit too sweet. However, it was still gorgeous exactly as it was.

Appearance: 8/10
Aroma: 7.5/10
Taste: 8/10
Texture: 8.5/10
Overall score: 8/10

Recipe: Nanaimo bars

Recipe: Nanaimo bars
Source: My Kitchen Antics

We had a big family event at the weekend that required lots and lots of cake! I was happy to help and was asked to make something that would serve 20+ people. As well as being tasty, it needed to be something that could be stored for a couple of days, wasn’t messy to eat and, since I work full-time, I also wanted it to be incredibly easy to make or a recipe that I’d successfully made before. I opted for the latter...

I was first told about Nanaimo bars by a colleague in my old work. She told me they originated in Canada and, once I’d looked them up on Wikipedia, I knew I just had to make them. When the time came, I settled on this recipe from My Kitchen Antics (adapted from The Boy Who Bakes) because I was too lazy to follow a recipe that used cups for measurements, and I also liked the way it had added pecans to the base.

The first time I ever made these, I also made a peanut butter version (following a different recipe), and both types were a big hit. I’ve made this ‘original’ recipe again since and they turned out exactly the same – no problems! My memory did fail me, though, as I was thinking I’d only previously got 16 pieces out of the batch rather than the predicted 20–25, so I ended up making two batches for the weekend...I ended up with 40 slices. Oh well, the more the merrier!

For some reason, I didn’t read the recipe properly on this occasion, so I lined my baking trays with greased baking paper rather than foil. Whilst this did turn out ok, it made it harder to ease the finished product from the tins, so I’ll definitely be sticking to the foil in future!

The recipe was as easy as I remembered it. I used digestive biscuits which I whizzed in the food processor and the smell of these combined with the coconut was fantastic. When preparing the cocoa mixture for the base, I loved watching it turn silky and thick and, once combined with the rest of the ingredients, all the elements held together really well and left the mixing bowl clean once transferred to the baking tray. It smelt delicious and tiffin-like, although its slightly greasy appearance didn’t look promising in terms of any health benefits. (Who am I kidding? This was never going to be a healthy treat!) In terms of pressing this layer down into the tin, I’ve always found that the back of a metal serving spoon does the job nicely.

 

The middle layer was my only cause for concern on this occasion. When mixing the butter and icing sugar, it didn’t go smooth before I added the cream (as the picture shows), and I couldn’t remember if that had happened before. I carried on regardless and, thankfully, everything turned out fine. For this layer, I used a spatula to spread it evenly.

I was slightly nervous about the final layer of these bars as my last experience was of making an orange version where I made the stupid mistake of setting the heat too high and leaving the chocolate for the full two minutes without checking on it. The result was a burnt-tasting ganache! I definitely learnt from my error and had no further problems this time so I quite happily applied it to the top of the traybake with a palette knife.

The only downside of this recipe is that it does require patience in taking time to spread each layer out carefully (although I’m a non-artistic perfectionist so probably take longer than most!) and then leaving them to set. On this occasion, my start to end baking time was around five hours but, bearing in mind I made two batches, stopped for lunch, had a couple of fights with cling film (urgh) and realised part way through that I didn’t have enough icing sugar and had to wait for more to arrive, this seemed totally reasonable. Even better was the fact that I remained stress-free throughout!

Most importantly, the Nanaimo bars were as rich as ever. They had a lovely chocolatey taste with a subtle coconut flavour and chunky pecans. I guess they weren’t too dissimilar from other chocolate traybakes, but I think these Nanaimo bars were sweeter than most, although this was mellowed greatly by the chocolate. I’ve always found that the custard adds more texture than flavour, whilst the icing sugar provides a different, slightly grainy texture in the middle layer, which is also something different to other similar treats.

 

As for the crowd, they were definitely pleased – I only heard positive comments from those who tried them and some people raved and raved. I know I’ll be making these for years to come!

  

Ease of recipe: 9.5/10
Finished product: 9/10
Overall score: 9.25/10
Bake again? Yes

Cadbury Dairy Milk: Ritz

Product name: Cadbury Dairy Milk: Ritz
Purchase details: £0.50 for a 35g bar (tesco.com)
Calories: 183 per bar
Country of origin: UK 

Although new to Cadbury, I first tried the combination of milk chocolate and ‘salted crackers’ over a year ago, thanks to Monster Sweets who sell the Milka Tuc bar. Although I acknowledge that teaming chocolate with ‘moreish crackers’ sounds a bit weird, I knew from this previous experience that it definitely works!

This Dairy Milk: Ritz bar was made by Mondelez and featured the usual Dairy Milk chocolate recipe that made up 80% of the overall product. Bearing in mind that this still left room for eight crackers, I figured they must be really small.

The wrapper gave an indication of the bar’s unusual shape – it was wider and flatter than most Cadbury bars and it contained crackers on each side. I thought their positioning made the bar look like a little window! There was also a chocolate teapot on the packaging which, whilst completely random, did make me smile.

The chocolate was pretty thick but, due to the heat, it had a soft break to it. It had the usual Dairy Milky scent that had combined with a slightly salty, savoury smell. However, the aroma as a whole wasn’t very strong.

The style of the salty crackers confused me slightly as they had the very crispy texture of McVitie’s Mini Cheddars so I kept expecting a cheesy flavour to follow. Thankfully, in the circumstances, this wasn’t the case, so I really enjoyed the contrast between this savoury aspect and the sweet, delicious Dairy Milk which was by far the dominant flavour.

Although the chocolate in my bar was bit softer than normal, it remained nice and solid and the texture was another good contrast with the Ritz. The crackers did mean it was a Dairy Milk product that couldn’t easily be sucked, but I didn’t find this was a problem when the alternative was so satisfying.

I’m really glad to see Cadbury continuing to branch out with their available varieties.

Appearance: 7.5/10
Aroma: 7/10
Taste: 8/10
Texture: 8/10
Overall score: 7.63/10

McVitie's Digestives: Milk chocolate & orange

Product name: McVitie’s Digestives: Milk chocolate & orange
Purchase details: £1.00 for a 300g packet (tesco.com)
Calories: 84 per biscuit
Country of origin: UK

I vaguely remember these McVitie’s Digestives: Milk chocolate & orange biscuits being released previously but I know I never got around to sampling them. Thankfully, they’re now back, so I was looking forward to trying another incarnation of one of my favourite flavour combinations.

Made by United Biscuits, the pack contained an average of 18 Digestives, and they came in a ginger wrapper which reminded me of an old cat of ours! The product image looked like standard chocolate digestive biscuits, and I noticed that these particular ones contained 30% chocolate, had no artificial flavours, colours or hydrogenated vegetable oil in them, and they also supported British farmers and rural communities.

The biscuit bases were quite pale in colour and the chocolate toppings looked quite milky in appearance. The latter also had a tendency to look and feel a bit melted in the heat we’ve been having! The biscuits had an ingrained orange scent too although, unfortunately, one that didn’t waft.

Texturally, this snack was as you’d expect: the biscuit itself was really crispy, if a little dry, but the chocolate really lifted it. They were particularly good dipped in tea as the orange-flavoured chocolate melted and was just lovely.

Speaking of which, the orange taste was delicious and stronger than I’d dare hope for. I have nothing against the flavour of plain digestives but the orange on offer here completely masked that much blander element and produced a very tasty treat.

I hope these will stick around this time!

Appearance: 7.5/10
Aroma: 7.5/10
Taste: 7.5/10
Texture: 7/10
Overall score: 7.38/10